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Dessert

Variety Cakes

A cake made with flour, sugar, lard, butter, eggs, milk, chocolate, vanilla, and carmine, baked in a greased tin.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Variety Cakes

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the batter

  1. Cream the sugar and butter together.

  2. Add the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition.

  3. Stir in the flour and vanilla extract.

  4. Divide the mixture into three parts.

  5. Add the chocolate to one part, color the second part pink with carmine, and leave the third part plain.

Bake and finish

  1. Prepare a greased cake tin lined with paper.

  2. Drop spoonfuls of the mixture into the tin.

  3. Bake in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C) for about 15 minutes.

  4. Turn out the cake and let it cool.

  5. Once cool, ice with glace icing and cut into fancy shapes.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  2. Chocolate + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,020 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  3. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  4. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Coombs' flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps create a tender crumb when creamed with fat.
Lard and butter
Add fat for tenderness and a rich, moist texture.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure and richness.
Cadbury's chocolate
Adds chocolate flavor to one of the three batter portions.

The step that matters

Adding the eggs one at a time. Adding eggs gradually and mixing well after each one lets the batter emulsify. A batter that curdles or separates can bake up coarse and uneven.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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